“James and Matthew recall Jesus’ teaching with the same terms and order. In that teaching Jesus confronted the Pharisaic practice of using various formulas to create different levels of oaths, some of which were considered less binding than others. (Cf. Mt 23:16-22.) The Pharisees could thereby bind themselves to their promises in various degrees and so excuse themselves from keeping commitments they had made with lesser oaths. They could use their oaths to sound exceedingly pious and to justify themselves as deeply religious, while being in fact hypocritical. (See Stott’s discussion of Mt 5:33-37, 1978:99-102.) Jesus commanded his followers therefore not to swear but to invest their simple words of yes or no with complete integrity. James follows that passage; we might conclude that he is simply prescribing honesty in speech.”
The Talmud makes similiar admonitions regarding truthfulness.
I, for one, like the masons, although I do not care for the Knight Templar groups. The masons of Europe were very helpful in smuggling out Jews from Nazi Germany. If you look on some of the lists of “rightous people” you frequently see the massonic “half-tiangle” by their names (it’s two lines, like the top of a triangle with various symbols beween the lines).
The anti-masons have little time for facts or clear exegesis of scripture, Christian or Jewish.